


Where There Is Light

by Ryxl



Series: Of Faith, Power, and Glory [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV), Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Brief appearances of other characters - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, I'm serious about those spoilers, Jack and Gabe are angels, Jack has PTSD, M/M, Non-graphic death, Spoilers for Season 3, Spoilers for Season 4, Wing Hugs, angels are not genetically related, brief loss of bodily autonomy, the plot's getting derailed hardcore, they don't even have DNA, they're brothers the way monks are brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryxl/pseuds/Ryxl
Summary: While investigating the murders of two former gang members, Chloe Decker thinks she and Lucifer have caught a break, but the new suspect turns out to not be involved. Gabriel may not have been the lead they wanted, but they’re going to discover that they got what they needed: brothers, friends, allies, and support.(Takes place during S4E3 and contains spoilers for half of season 3, the finale to season 3, and half of season 4. Seriously, the first paragraphs will spoil season 3.)It was my distinct honor and pleasure to write for the amazing artwork made bytatch(pillowfort) for theReaper76 Reverse Big Bang!





	Where There Is Light

**Author's Note:**

> When I first saw tatch's art for this event, I wanted to write for it so very badly. We even discussed this AU, and I vowed that I'd write it even if we didn't get paired. 
> 
> ...we didn't get paired. 
> 
> I started writing it once I was done with my piece, and then circumstances happened and it was my time to shine! So here it is, the story that apparently was always meant to be and the first of a series because I really like this AU and I want to go through the rest of season four. (Or, at least, the parts of season four I didn't obliterate by derailing the plot.)

* * *

Chloe

* * *

Since Lucifer had walked into her life, Chloe Decker had experienced a yearning - with distressingly increasing frequency - for the days when being recognized from _Hot Tub High School_ had been her most pressing personal concern. Granted, not all of that was his fault - he certainly wasn’t responsible for the...whole… _whatever_ that had been with Pierce (Cain?), for example. But regardless, Lucifer Morningstar had complicated her life more than she thought it could be complicated.

Then she’d seen his face.

What do you do when the man who’s been telling you that he’s the actual devil turns out to really be _the actual devil?_ A month-long impulse vacation to Europe to try to find a way to deal with it seemed like a perfectly reasonable reaction, and having found Father Kinley certainly seemed - at the time - to prove that she was correct. He believed her story, something _she_ couldn’t even manage some days, and he seemed to know what he was talking about, but once she got back to Los Angeles again...

Well, she’d had a creeping suspicion that he’d been taking advantage of her emotionally vulnerable state even _before_ Lucifer threw himself in the path of a wood axe for her.

There had been days, in Rome, where she had nearly convinced herself that she hadn’t really seen _that_. She’d been drugged, or hit on the head and imagined it, mistook a bloody face for a devil face in her shock at Pierce trying to kill her, but she hadn’t seen _The Devil_. Coming back to LA and seeing Lucifer again had almost solidified the ‘drugged’ theory because that wasn’t _The Devil_ , that was just Lucifer. Self-centered but charming, eccentric but benign, no more out-of-touch than the average gazillionaire. Her partner.

And then he’d walked out of an explosion unscathed, casually brushing the sparks off of his suit jacket, and she knew she had seen the truth that day.

Initially, it terrified her. Lucifer _was_ the devil, and Father Kinley’s plan to send him back to hell seemed perfectly reasonable. But then she learned that her presence made him vulnerable, and that he was – inexplicably – willing to get hurt in her defense, and it all fell apart. Maybe he _had_ been everything Father Kinley said he was, once upon a time. But in his own way, she realized, he was trying to change.

Even if she was the only one who could see it.

That thought was at the front of her mind as she walked through the station, looking for him. Anders Brody was innocent after all, and with their hands tied until they got a warrant for Los Xs, she was toying with the idea of trying to tease out Lucifer’s good side. The fact that he and Brody were hugging when she found him seemed like a sign she was on the right path.

Before she could suggest they meet up later, however, Dan hurried over with palpable excitement.

“Thought you’d want to hear this,” he blurted, giving Lucifer a dubious look before turning back to her. “They just brought in a guy who was having a full-out brawl in the middle of the street with – guess.”

Chloe and Lucifer exchanged a brief, electric look. “Los Xs?” she asked.

Dan nodded. “You got it.”

They hurried off to the interrogation room.

“You go ahead,” Lucifer said as they got there. “I need to speak with Detective Dan for a moment.”

Frowning, wondering what he was up to, she nodded and took the paperwork being handed to her as she slipped inside the room.

The suspect – Gabriel, she saw glancing at his papers – was Latino, probably six feet and two hundred pounds of pure muscle, wearing broken-in jeans and what looked like it had started life as a leather jacket but at some point had been converted to a vest. Sharply angular and intricate tattoos covered as much of his chest and abdomen as she could see, not to mention his bulging bronze biceps. His hair would have been curly if it was shorter, but Chloe guessed it fell to at least the middle of his back and the weight of it pulled the curls into unfairly lustrous black waves. Despite that, he had a neatly-trimmed mustache and goatee.

She didn’t even get a chance to sit down before he snared her with dark, caramel eyes and said, “ **I can’t stay here. Let me go.** ”

Chloe blinked. Sure, he had a gorgeous voice, smooth and vibrant, but that didn’t mean she was going to just let a suspect walk out. “No,” she said, sitting down.

Gabriel stared at her, perplexed that she’d refused him. “ **I need to leave,** ” he said patiently. “ **Release me.** ”

“No.”

“ **… _please_ release me.**”

“Why?”

“ **Because I need to leave.** ”

“No.”

They stared at each other for a handful of seconds.

“ **I need to-** ”

“You need to tell me what you were doing with those Los Xs,” she interrupted, but that just made him look even more confused.

“ **I have no idea who that is,** ” Gabriel said apologetically. “ **But I really do need-** ”

“You need to leave,” sighed Chloe. “I know.”

Annoyed, she stood and strode to the door. Maybe she was a bad person for this, but right now she really wanted Lucifer’s devil charm to cut through this guy’s one-track mind.

“Detective!” Lucifer looked surprised and a little wary as she stuck her head out of the door. “What-”

“He just keeps saying he needs to leave. Get in here and do your-” she made a gesture of eyes-to-eyes “-thing.”

Lucifer puffed up, pleased. “It would be my pleasure,” he purred. “Lead the way.”

She led the way, but the instant he laid eyes on the suspect, he stopped in shock. “Gabriel?”

“Lucifer!” Gabriel exclaimed in delight, and his voice no longer sounded so…resonant. “Wow, I haven’t seen you in eons! You look good. How are you doing, brother?”

Chloe suddenly wondered about Gabriel’s name as Lucifer cringed.

“It’s complicated,” he said.

She elbowed him.

“Oh! Yes. Um. The Los Xs gang – are you involved? There’s been some murders-”

“ **Wasn’t me,** ” he said shortly. The resonance was back. “ **And I need to leave _right away_.**”

Lucifer turned to her, grinning. “There, you see? It wasn’t him. Let’s get him out.”

“Lucifer! You’re not even going to ask him _why_ he needs to leave?”

Gabriel locked eyes with him as he turned away from her, mouth open to ask. “ **If I am kept here,** ” he said in that resonant voice, “ **everyone in the building is liable to die a terrible, screaming death as the very foundations of creation crack and bleed raw power into the world.** ”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Lucifer said nervously(!), shooting her a shaky smile. “Agreed, Detective?”

Chloe sighed, despite the unease caused by Lucifer being _nervous_. Somehow this had turned into A Lucifer Thing. “Fine. But the cuffs stay on.”

“ **I need what was taken from me,** ” Gabriel told Lucifer, standing up.

“I thought you needed to leave,” she asked, frowning.

“ **I do. But if I do not have what was taken from me, it will make little difference.** ”

Chloe was not usually one to get anxious. But Lucifer was taking this seriously, he called the suspect _brother_ , and there was just something about that smooth, resonant voice that made her feel like he was telling the truth. Mentally, she threw her hands in the air and figured she could ask questions later. Once the potential threat to everyone in the building had been resolved.

“Okay. Lucifer, you go charm Evidence into giving you whatever he had on him when he was arrested. I’ll take Gabriel to get a cruiser. Meet us there.”

“ **And hurry,** ” Gabriel added with a frown. “ **He knows I’m here, and he’s coming for me. We have to find him first.** ”

That wasn’t ominous _at all_.

Gabriel followed obediently as she dragged him through the precinct by the handcuffs, his paperwork under her other arm, and Lucifer met them at the car with a brown paper bag.

“This is all they said he had,” he said, offering it to Chloe. “One key on a key ring, sixty-two cents, and a pint of...” He checked the contents of the bag, face wrinkling in affront. “...Funfetti Birthday Crunch ice cream. Melted.”

Gabriel made a sound of annoyance. “Give it to me. I’ll deal with it.”

Lucifer handed it over as Chloe unlocked the car.

“Okay, Gabriel,” she said, opening the back door. “In you go. Lucifer, I call shotgun. You’re driving. Where are we going?”

The fact that Lucifer only made a pleased sound and didn’t comment on being allowed to drive the cruiser just hammered home how _weird_ this all was. Once Gabriel had climbed into the back seat, he gave them directions to a likely intercept course with the mysterious “he”. It didn’t take long for her and Lucifer to get buckled in, and then they were pulling out of the parking lot while the suspect muttered something in the back and Chloe skimmed his paperwork in the passenger seat.

“So, Gabriel,” she said after a moment, “you said you weren’t involved with the Los Xs, but it says here you were seen literally throwing the last punch in that fight.”

“I said I didn’t know who they were,” came the patient correction from the back seat.

“And you’re not involved in the murders.”

“I’m not sure which murders you’re referring to,” Gabriel said absently, “but I haven’t killed anyone in Los Angeles.”

Chloe glared out the window in annoyance. “Then why were you fighting them?”

“They wouldn’t let me pass.”

“And you believe him, Lucifer?”

He glanced at her in his usual surprise. “Of course, Detective. He has no reason to lie about that, do you, brother?”

“No cause at all, brother.”

“Oh, this is Detective Decker, by the way,” Lucifer added.

Gabriel looked up from his melted ice cream and nodded. “A pleasure.”

Chloe flipped back to the front of the sheaf of papers. “Gabriel…no surname. And you had no ID on you.”

“Correct,” he said pleasantly. “Oh, turn here. He’ll be coming on foot.”

Right. That mysterious _he_ who was going to kill everyone in the precinct. If Gabriel didn’t stop him with a pint of melted ice cream. Chloe wasn’t sure she believed that there was a threat to humanity on its way and that Gabriel was some sort of celestial being who could stop it, but she also wasn’t sure whether disbelief really made her sane in this situation and, well, she _was_ sitting in a police cruiser with the devil. Maybe. So who knew.

But still, Lucifer was taking it seriously and it wasn’t even about him, so Chloe couldn’t completely dismiss the idea out of hand.

“So what should I expect when we find… _him_ ,” she asked the two of them, visions of supernatural showdowns dancing in her head.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Gabriel shouted, “There he is!” and Lucifer screeched to a stop next to what looked like a simple mugging, except that the man she would have pegged as the victim was looming over the apparent mugger, who took the opportunity to flee as their arrival distracted the potential victim-slash-threat to humanity.

He certainly didn’t _look_ like a threat to humanity, she thought as she fumbled with the seat belt. He looked like an average white tourist – 30s, tall, blonde, questionable fashion sense – but he was built like ex-military with a haunted, exhausted expression that suggested he hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in the last month while pulling double and triple shifts at work.

Then she realized that Gabriel had somehow gotten out of the cruiser _and his handcuffs_ and was pulling the exhausted guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and broken-in jeans into a tight hug. No, wait, he still had the handcuffs on one wrist, but the other-

The two men kissed and then Gabriel handed over the bag and – where did he get a spoon? – and the exhausted guy promptly _sat on the sidewalk_ to eat the ice cream that was no longer melted with the spoon that _apparently_ used to be half of the handcuffs. What the actual fuck was going on? Cautiously, she climbed out of the cruiser to get a closer look, aware of Lucifer doing the same while Gabriel just beamed in relief.

Lucifer stopped in shock. “Michael?!”

“He’s going by Jack now,” Gabriel corrected with an edge in his voice.

“Michael,” Lucifer repeated, clearly having not heard his brother at all. “Michael, it’s me, Lu-”

Before he could finish, Gabriel had throat-slammed him effortlessly against the wall, lending evidence to the ‘actually the angel Gabriel’ theory. “ **If you utter that name one more time,** ” Gabriel said calmly in that weirdly resonant voice, “ **you will spend the next fifty years embedded in solid rock, thinking about your life choices. _He’s going by Jack now._** ”

“Jack,” choked Lucifer, eyes wide. “Got it.”

Gabriel released him. “Detective Decker,” he sad pleasantly, voice no longer resonant, “let me introduce you to my partner, who's currently going by Jack. Please do your best to not utter any untruths around him; he's very sensitive to that.”

“I…” Chloe broke off, reconsidering. “I will do my best,” she said rather than the ‘I understand’ that would have been a lie. “Was that spoon my handcuffs?”

“Partially,” Gabriel admitted.

If Michael – _Jack_ – was sensitive to lies, and Gabriel had somehow turned half of his handcuffs (because she could see they’d been broken) into a spoon, did that mean he could _actually_ have left Lucifer embedded in that wall?

Jack sat on the sidewalk, eating ice cream with single-minded exhaustion, ignoring them all while Lucifer straightened his clothing and coughed discreetly. Gabriel knelt beside his partner, touching him gently, hands on arms and shoulders as he leaned down to murmur in his ear. Jack _did_ look marginally less stressed out, which Chloe thought was probably a good thing even if he _wasn’t_ the threat to humanity she’d been expecting.

“Gabriel,” Lucifer said irritably, interrupting her thoughts, “would you mind telling me what the _hell_ is going on?”

Chloe swallowed a laugh because for once, she and Lucifer were in complete agreement.

Jack just sat on the sidewalk, eating his ice cream.

* * *

Gabriel

* * *

In the beginning, it is said, there was nothing. That's not entirely true, because _nothing_ is not _no one_. Two beings floated, without form, in the void and decided that they wanted there to be _som_ _e_ _thing_.

Let there be light.

But their vast and awesome power threatened to shatter the void itself if they acted upon it directly, and so they touched - gently, ever so gently - and created a vessel. A being made in their unfathomable image, like them but not, a test to see if the idea was sound. If they could, in fact, plant the seeds of their powers in their creations and, through them, bring forth _something_.

Amenadiel was the name they gave to their first creation.

Others followed, brought forth quickly one after the other as their cosmic parents mastered the art: Michael. Lucifer. Uriel. Azrael. Remiel.

Gabriel.

He watched, in the infinite nothingness, as the two immeasurable beings poured the very Light of Creation into Michael to hold. He watched as Lucifer drew the Light out and spun it into nebulas and oceans of cosmic dust, watched as suns formed and planets followed, watched as everything that is was put into motion. Lucifer earned his surname from this - Morningstar, weaver of suns, bringer of light into the vast, empty darkness.

But Gabriel never forgot that it was from _Michael_ that the Light first came.

As time passed, they, the first ones, were given tasks. Responsibilities. _Purpose_. Or perhaps it was simply that the vast entities who had brought them forth saw they had skills and encouraged them. Uriel excelled in seeing patterns and manipulating them; it was to him that all tasks went where a specific outcome was desired. When life formed, Azrael became its staunch defender and it was to her that the responsibility fell for guiding their souls once their mortal forms perished. Michael, still the vessel of Creation's Light, was the one to whom it fell to carry out any direct action their parents desired.

Gabriel was the Voice.

Although their Mother was not overly-concerned with the petty lives and actions of humanity, their Father was. He was _very_ interested in humans, directing His first children to do this and that, punish these and reward those. And whenever He had a message, it fell to Gabriel to deliver it and speak with the seed of God's power that had been entrusted to him.

The first time went...badly. Seeing the king, or priest, or tyrant now long forgotten by history disintegrated by the words _Be not afraid_ made Gabriel flee and hide in an isolated corner of the world, shaking at the terrible destructive power he had unwittingly unleashed. He could not face Azrael for a decade, and when she finally tracked him down, she pulled him firmly into a hug and told him that he was forgiven. Tender-hearted as she was, she could see that he hadn't _meant_ to leave the human as a decorative spray burned into the wall. She hugged him, and she sang to him, and she suggested that he try speaking more softly.

Comforted by her words, Gabriel returned to the Silver City, but not all of his siblings were so understanding of the effect that the human’s accidental obliteration had had on him. Some were merely indifferent, but others resented that he had been chosen for that responsibility instead of them and they had no pity for him.

He tried again and again, choosing shepherd boys and common people to deliver his messages to in case he Spoke with too much volume, but he was not always successful in delivering his message to a still-living human. It was over a dozen failures before Gabriel fled again, refusing all contact from his brothers and sisters, and hid himself in the most remote places he could find, where life was simple enough to not be destroyed by hearing the Voice of God.

After a century in self-imposed isolation, he sought out more complex life again - but not humans. He sang to the whales and dolphins and creatures of the sea; he sang to the cranes and kites and falcons; he sat in grassy fields holding baby bunnies and Speaking to them softly, gently, learning exactly how much Voice was too much. Only when he felt he had mastered that gift did he return to his siblings and take up his duties again.

It was while he was delivering a message that he saw Michael.

His brother, with hair like sunlight and eyes like the ocean, was often away carrying out his own tasks and Gabriel hadn't thought anything of the fact that it had been several hundred years since he'd last seen Michael. But as he caught a flash of golden hair among the dark heads and recognized the shape as being angelic rather than human, he realized that Michael looked _absolutely miserable_ and it occurred to him that maybe, he was not the only one on whom the seed of divine power weighed heavily.

After that sighting, Gabriel was...restless. The splendor of the Silver City lost its shine for him, and the wonders of Creation seemed dull and drab. His brother, the one who held Creation's Light, was miserable. It seemed like a sin against Creation itself that this should be the case, and for nearly a century he wrestled with the growing desire to just...leave. Leave, and find Michael, and hug him and sing to him as Azrael had done, and stay by his side until he was happy again. But that was acting on his own desires, not the orders of his Mother or Father, and he knew that if either of them told him no, he would disobey.

That terrified him.

In the end, it was a command that settled his personal crisis: God commanded him to watch over and honor His creations.

Well...Michael was one of His creations, wasn't he? Surely their Father would be upset if anything happened to His Light-bearing child, right?

Gabriel left the Silver City to find Michael, and once he did, he never went back.

Their Mother didn't take that well. She sent some of their siblings to find them and tell them to come home; she loved them, and she missed them, and she wanted them to return.

They refused. Repeatedly, sometimes nearly with violence. Several times, Gabriel had to use the Voice to tell them that he and Michael were staying on Earth. Eventually, their siblings stopped bothering them and they put it all out of their minds. Occasionally they saw Azrael in the course of her duties, and she was always pleased to see them, but they didn't see any of their other brothers and sisters.

That is, until the day Gabriel had been arrested for ending a fight he hadn't started, sitting in an interrogation room with a woman who was immune to the Voice, and in walked Lucifer.

* * *

“Gabriel.” Lucifer sounded like he was holding his patience with both hands. “Would you mind telling me what the _hell_ is going on?”

Gabriel kissed Jack’s temple one more time, murmured one last endearment in a dead language to his sweetie, noting that the hairline cracks in his skin had closed and the Light contained within him was no longer in danger of seeping out.

“Could we do it somewhere else?” Gabriel asked calmly. “I want to get Jack away from people, keep him from getting upset. He’s had a rough mental health week,” he explained to Detective Decker, hugging his silent darling tighter. “ _You didn’t have to come out,_ ” he murmured in Akkadian.

Jack swallowed his bite. “ _Yes, I did._ ”

“ _They can’t hurt me, love. I could have gotten out any time I wanted._ ”

“ _But a demon could have. I won’t have you getting any more scars for me because of them._ ”

Gabriel sighed and kissed Jack’s temple again. He couldn’t argue with that, not with how upset he’d been to see the scars Michael – Jack, he was Jack until he was more emotionally stable again – the scars that littered Jack’s body from the occasional demon attack.

Decker cleared her throat. “Do you have an apartment?”

“We do,” Gabriel confirmed. “Going back there would be best, I think.”

She clapped her hands together once. “Great. Get in the cruiser, both of you, and I’ll drive you there.”

Lucifer gave her a hurt look. “But _I_ was-”

“And now you have shotgun,” she informed him briskly, moving back towards the car. “Get the address from your brother.”

“Jack,” Gabriel murmured. “Look, Lucifer’s here.”

Jack raised his eyes from the nearly-empty pint for the first time, taking in Decker and the police cruiser before resting on their brother. “Oh,” he murmured back, smiling faintly. “That’s _nice_.”

Gabriel helped Jack to his feet and guided him to, and into, the back seat of the police car. It only took a moment to give Lucifer the address for the apartment they were staying in, and then Decker pulled into traffic to drive them there.

“So,” she said in a false-casual voice, “what was that about everyone dying a screaming death, Gabriel? You made it sound like- like something very dramatic.”

Jack buried his face in Gabriel’s shoulder.

In the front seat, Lucifer glanced back at them. “Oh, my brother carries the powers of creation inside of him,” he explained cheerfully. “He’s been the instrument of our Father’s wrath for…eons, really. I thought,” he chuckled, glancing at Gabriel again, “that he was coming to _kill_ you, brother. That you’d done something to piss off dear old Dad worse than me staging a rebellion against him.”

They both stiffened, Jack’s arms tightening around Gabriel as he whimpered and Gabriel exclaimed, “You _what?_ ”

Lucifer turned to look at him in shock. “You…you didn’t know?”

“Thought they were stories,” Jack muttered, not looking up.

“You didn’t _know_ ,” Lucifer repeated, “that I staged a rebellion and Dad threw me into Hell, where I’ve been until about seven years ago when I decided I’d had enough and moved here?”

“That explains the demons,” Gabriel murmured to Jack. “They must have thought they were getting revenge.”

Behind the wheel, Decker was sitting very straight with her jaw and hands clenched. Lucifer caught Gabriel looking, glanced at her, and made a sound of understanding.

“You don’t have to worry,” he assured them. “The Detective knows I’m the actual devil. Whatever you two’ve done, it can’t be more of a shock to her than that.” He paused. “What _did_ you two do?”

Gabriel shrugged. “We left. Jack went first, and I followed later to make sure he was okay, and then we just…didn’t go back.”

Lucifer stared. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“So then…who did Dad get to deliver his pompous pronouncements?”

“I still did that,” Gabriel told him.

Jack stirred a little. “You did?”

“I did. Never took long. I always made sure to tell you I was going out.”

“Okay.”

Decker glanced at them in the mirror. “Is he…alright?”

“No,” muttered Jack.

Gabriel hugged him. “He was the instrument of God’s wrath since the beginning of time, and it hurt him. Badly. He’s healed a lot over the eons, but he still has good years and bad years.” He caught Lucifer’s eye as his brother looked about to launch into a complaint. “I’d rather not discuss it while he’s in a bad place.”

Lucifer shut his mouth.

“So you’re…” Decker hesitated. “You’re the one who told Mary she was going to have a baby.”

“Among other errands,” Gabriel confirmed.

“And that’s why your voice...changes.”

“Just the slightest hint of the divine to convince mortals to do what I ask.” Gabriel frowned. “But it didn’t work on you.”

Lucifer looked _highly_ uncomfortable. “The Detective is…special. We’ll leave it at that for now. Isn’t that your apartment building there?” When Gabriel answered in the affirmative, he recoiled. “It’s _horrid_. What are you doing living _there?”_

“It was the first opportunity that presented itself,” Gabriel said dryly while Jack chuckled into his shoulder, remembering how they’d sent the scum running with a few well-chosen words and the painful consequences of lying to Jack.

“Well, I’m finding you someplace better to live.” Lucifer toyed with his phone while Decker parked in the small lot. “Can’t be seen visiting my brothers in _this_ kind of neighborhood. What do you like in a dwelling, brothers? Hot tubs? Six bedrooms? A stunning view?”

“No neighbors,” Jack said quietly.

“The hot tub seems a little over the top,” Gabriel added, “but a view would be nice.”

Lucifer turned to beam at them. “Then consider it done. I’ll let you know when I’ve found a place.” His expression clouded over. “Neither of you have cell phones, do you.”

Gabriel smiled apologetically.

“This _is_ a rough neighborhood,” Decker offered as they led their guests inside. “I’d be worried about the two of you, but I guess you can more than take care of yourselves, huh?”

Gabriel just smiled at her, and she nodded.

“Right. Angels.” She shook her head and sat on a rickety wooden chair. “Sorry, this is still a bit…new…to me.”

“She saw my devil face recently,” supplied Lucifer, rummaging through their fridge, “and it was a bit of a shock, shall we say.”

Decker snorted. “Took a month-long vacation to process it.”

Gabriel opened his mouth, but Jack tugged him down onto the battered couch with him, and she gave them a suddenly-sharp look as they cuddled together.

“If Lucifer were…doing something wrong by being here,” she said slowly, “you two would know, right?”

They nodded, but Gabriel didn’t miss that their brother was giving the detective a piercing look. 

“Why _are_ you here?” he asked them. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see you both, but what made you come to Los Angeles?”

“Our sister,” Gabriel answered. “She mentioned a friend living here, and that one of our brothers was here, so we came to visit.”

Lucifer frowned. “It wasn’t…”

“Ray-Ray,” Jack said with a soft smile.

“Oh. So she….knows. That you’re…”

“Together?” Gabriel asked dryly. “Yes. What was that about a… _devil face?”_

After a brief attempt to turn a flinch into a smile, Lucifer kept his eyes away from Decker and said, “Well, I’m the devil, so…it’s my face…as the devil.”

Jack and Gabriel exchanged a concerned look.

“And how long has it been like that?” Gabriel asked warily.

Lucifer’s gaze went to Decker as his smile faltered. “Well, I lost it for a time recently, but it came back after I…” He took a breath. “…after I killed Cain.”

Immediately, Gabriel was off the couch and hugging him, to his _and_ Decker’s surprise.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Decker said hesitantly, throwing confused looks at Jack while Lucifer slowly surrendered to the implicit support and understanding of Gabriel’s embrace.

“We control ourselves,” Gabriel said softly. “We shape ourselves into what matches how we feel we should look. I felt _horrible_ the first time a human died because I used too much Voice. Hid from everyone for a decade.”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Lucifer’s voice was strangled. “I murdered him in cold blood, and I’d do it again.”

“Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good,” Gabriel soothed. “No matter how you feel about yourself, you’re still our brother and we love you.”

“Feathers,” blurted Decker, looking like she’d just solved a mystery. All eyes turned to her, and she waved the whole thing away. “Nothing important. I just remembered something I hadn’t paid attention to because I was distracted by Lucifer’s devil face.”

“You haven’t said anything about me being the devil,” Lucifer said quietly, making reluctant motions to free himself from his brother’s embrace.

Gabriel gave him a last squeeze and let go. “You haven’t said anything about us being _together_.”

“Yes, well, I’m hardly in a position to cast judgment, now am I?” He laughed dryly. “Just wait until Amenadiel finds out; you’ll get all the condemnation you could want from him, I’m sure, now that he’s decided to live here.”

“He knows,” Jack said darkly from the couch. _“Blossom, come back.”_

Gabriel resumed his seat and cuddled Jack to him. “Relationships between angels are frowned upon,” he clarified for Decker. “Anything that involves acting on our own desires is frowned upon, really. Mother sent Amenadiel to try to convince us to come back to the Silver City.”

“Repeatedly,” added Jack bitterly.

Lucifer looked torn between delight and dismay. “I have good news and bad news on that front. Our Mother was in Hell for quite some time, but she slipped out and has returned to the Void.”

The two on the couch exchanged a look while Decker looked confused.

“I’ll tell you...later,” Lucifer assured her vaguely. “But as for you two...” He patted various pockets before producing a cell phone, which he placed on the battered coffee table. “I’ll be in touch, hopefully sooner rather than later. I want to have you in someplace more...cultured...than this by the end of the week, but we’ll have to see how the case goes.”

“Right,” Decker interjected, like she’d forgotten. “The case. Lucifer, we should get back to the station and...explain why we hurried a suspect out like that. Among other things.”

Lucifer grinned. “We did, didn’t we? Well, no regrets, I’d hate to have seen it turn into a seething crater of nothingness and plasma. Brothers, I’ll see you soon.”

Gabriel smiled at him. “ **We look forward to it,** ” he said, truth giving the words a hint of Voice.

“Yes. It was very nice meeting you both,” Decker said, “and I look forward to seeing you again.”

Jack just waved.

Their brother and the human detective nodded and waved and backed out of the seedy apartment, leaving the two alone on the couch.

Jack nuzzled Gabriel’s shoulder. _“Sing to me?”_ he asked in a language man hadn’t spoken in 1500 years.

Softly, with enough Voice to send any human (except Decker?) fleeing, Gabriel sang.

* * *

Chloe

* * *

The first half of the drive back was silent. Lucifer was doing something very intently on his phone, and Chloe was thinking very hard about feathers. She’d forgotten, in the shock of seeing Lucifer’s devil face, but when she’d walked in and saw Lucifer standing over Pierce’s - _Cain’s_ \- dead body, there had been huge, white feathers strewn about. Bloody and tattered, but undeniably feathers, and it occurred to her to wonder how Lucifer had protected her from the gunfire she vaguely remembered hearing.

She made him vulnerable.

There had been gunfire, and she’d been on a roof far enough away that she guessed he would be invulnerable again. But there had been feathers.

“You have wings,” she said into the silence, not looking at her partner.

There was a beat of painful silence.

“I _had_ wings,” he countered.

“You said someone stole your devil face.”

“Yes, well, apparently that someone was _me_ ,” he spat. “Since it turns out that we angels do determine our appearances after all.”

Chloe wasn’t sure what to say to that; too much to unpack, not enough time. “You protected me,” she said instead. “With your wings.”

Lucifer looked away. “Yes. I did.”

“Thank you.”

“Most use the bloody things ever were,” he blustered.

“Do you still have them?”

He stared at her then looked away again. “I don’t know. I’ve been afraid to check. Afraid that they’re gone for good, and that it was my own damn fault, and...”

Chloe swallowed. “I’d like to see them,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I won’t lie, seeing your devil face was _really_ unsettling. But I think...if I saw your wings, too...it would help a lot.”

“So you’re _not_ comfortable with me being the devil, like you claimed,” he accused bitterly. “What _else_ have you been lying to me about?”

She pulled into the garage and parked the cruiser. “Okay yes, I did tell someone about you,” she began. “I was in Rome, and I found a priest who believed me when I said I’d seen the devil.”

“Ah-ha-”

“ _And he took advantage of me,”_ she continued, verbally trampling whatever Lucifer had been about to say.

He stared at her in alarm. “He _what?”_

“He’s obsessed with sending you back to hell,” she sighed. “He talked me into being a part of his plan to drug you and kill you ritually.”

“You were going to-”

“I was! But not anymore.” Chloe trembled, holding back the conflicting emotions she hadn’t had a chance to sort out. “Lucifer, you jumped in front of an axe meant for me. You protected me from Pierce. Whatever Father Kinley thinks you are, _you’re not._ You-”

“Wait.” Lucifer’s voice pulled her eyes to him, and he looked deeply shaken. “Father Kinley?”

Warily, she nodded.

“Bastard came to me last night, made it sound like _you_ were the one with the axe to grind against me.”

“Last night. _Last_ _night_ , I told him I wasn’t going to be part of his plan because he was _wrong_ about you, you’re _not_ the being of pure evil he thinks you are.”

Lucifer’s expression shifted from shaken and betrayed to just startled and unnerved. “You...did?”

She nodded. “Whatever you were in the past, Lucifer, you’re changing. Gabriel - he knew _immediately_ that your devil face returning was because killing...Cain...had made you feel horrible about yourself, but you _protected_ me. I don’t think your wings are gone, Lucifer. And if they’re still there, then your devil face...it doesn’t mean you’re a monster. It just means that the worst parts of you are visible, _but so are the best parts_. And I want to see that. I want to see _all_ of you, not just your worst parts.”

He stared at her with the same naked vulnerability as he had when she’d pressed the axe head to his chest. “Detective, I...” He swallowed. “I’ll check,” he promised.

Softly, she said, “Thank you.”

Once they got inside the building, Lucifer excused himself to ‘go check something’ and Chloe headed for the officers who’d brought Gabriel in. Some creative truth-telling explained why they’d released Gabriel so swiftly - the fight had been a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was the sole caretaker for his partner, who suffered from severe PTSD and was a danger to himself if left alone. They’d found the partner wandering the streets in a vulnerable state and escorted them safely back home, no harm done, not their guy.

Then she retreated to her desk, depressingly aware that they were back at square one for suspects.

“Hey, Chloe?” Dan looked perplexed and unnerved as he inched over to her desk, casting wary looks over his shoulder. “Is there a _reason_ Lucifer just walked out of the men’s room laughing and looking really pleased with himself?”

“He still has them,” she murmured. Then she shook her head. “Probably nothing you want to know about. It’s Lucifer,” she said as if that were an explanation, which it actually was.

Dan nodded. “Good point. So what happened with the guy who was beating up Los Xs?”

Chloe sighed. “Wrong place, wrong time. They picked the fight with him while he was out getting ice cream for his partner.”

“Unrelated? Damn.” Dan turned a circle, huffing in annoyance, as though a new suspect could be hiding behind a file cabinet. “So we’re back to waiting for a warrant.”

“Yeah...” Chloe let the word drift off, attention on Susan Ochoa’s file. “Maybe not. Her friend, Oscar. He was in Los Xs,” she said, excitement seeping into her voice as the mental wheels began turning. “He helped her get clean. Said he just arrived from El Salvador.”

Dan came around the desk to peer over her shoulder. “You think he might be lying?”

“I think he probably knows something,” she temporized. “We can start with checking his flight history. See if he really did come from El Salvador, ask him if he knows anything about the second victim. See if his story checks out,” she added reluctantly.

“Oh, it most assuredly _does not,”_ Lucifer declared as he strode over. “In fact, I’m going to meet with him right now.”

Chloe frowned. “Oscar?”

Lucifer frowned back. “What, the rocket scientist’s friend? No, Father Kinley. Going to meet him at a church. Cathedral, really,” he said, chuckling. “For the irony, you know. The Devil? In a cathedral? Hah. Anyway, good luck with...” He gestured vaguely. “Let me know if you find anything. I want to be there to punish the killer. I’ll be in touch,” he promised vaguely as he hurried off, still laughing to himself.

They watched him go, and when he was out of sight, Dan shook his head. “Yep. That’s Lucifer. So, Oscar?”

Chloe grabbed the file and stood up. “Yeah. Let’s go talk to the airport.”

* * *

Oscar Rivas, it turned out, had _not_ come from El Salvador that morning. He’d come from El Salvador last night, something that made Chloe very uneasy with the timing of things because the flight had left after she’d told Father Kinley that she was out. As infuriated as Dan was, and as eager as he was to go question Oscar more _emphatically,_ he had custody of their daughter at the moment and one of the things they’d always agreed on was that Trixie was a higher priority than justice. So with Lucifer still off at his confrontation in a cathedral, Chloe tracked Ella down to see if her hunch was correct.

“No luck with the guy they brought in?” the younger woman asked. “That bites,” she added when Chloe nodded.

“It wasn’t _all_ bad,” Chloe protested. “Turns out he’s one of Lucifer’s brothers, so there was a bit of cathartic family reunion, and we took him and his partner home.”

Ella gave her a wide-eyed look. “Whoah. Lucifer has brothers? That’s so cool! Where do they live? His brother and his brother’s partner, I mean,” she clarified. “Not all of his brothers.”

Chloe thought for a minute before naming the apartment complex, only to have Ella’s eyes widen again, but for a different reason.

“That’s a really rough neighborhood,” she said in a politely-horrified voice.

“I know,” Chloe said with a grimace. “But trust me, they can _more_ than defend themselves. Now, I had a thought about the friend, Oscar Rivas.”

Instantly, Ella was all business. “You know, I’m glad you brought him up because I was doing some checking, you know? And that dude - I mean, I’m not accusing him of anything, I’m just pointing it out - was the drug counselor to _both_ victims. Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s _exactly_ what I wanted to check on,” Chloe said grimly. “He lied about having come from El Salvador only this morning.”

“You think he did it,” gasped Ella. “Oh no, how horrible! They thought he was a friend, and then - whack!” She gestured, implying either a knife in the back or a wrench to the back of a head or...something.

Chloe grimaced again. “Yeah. Can you get the address of where he’s staying? I need to get in touch with Lucifer, let him know what’s going on.”

Ella nodded. “Sure thing. It’ll feel good to actually get the sleaze who murdered people trying to turn their lives around. At least _something_ will feel good,” she added in a mutter, fingers going to her throat.

The absence of the delicate cross that usually hung there suddenly felt glaring and ominous.

“You know,” Chloe said, trying to sound casual, “I bet Gabriel - Lucifer’s brother - and his partner Jack would appreciate a visit from one of Lucifer’s friends.”

The younger woman gave her a thoughtful look. “I could bring muffins,” she said slowly. “Nothing says _welcome to the neighborhood_ like fresh-baked muffins.”

Chloe smiled at her. “That’s a great idea. I think you should do that. I need to go call Lucifer.”

Still smiling at the thought of Ella’s troubled faith running into Gabriel’s resonant voice, she strode briskly back to her desk.

* * *

Gabriel

* * *

Gabriel was sorting through the contents of the previous tenant’s dresser when a fake bell sound echoed through the apartment. He paused in what he was doing, a pair of jeans held in his hands, trying to figure out where the artificial sound had come from. A moment later, he heard it again. It was coming from a small box on the wall in the kitchen, and as he stared at it in confusion, someone rapped on the door and he heard Jack stand up to open it.

This had the potential to be...unfortunate.

As he hurried to the living room, he heard the door open and a female voice said, “Are you Gabriel?”

“ _I_ am,” he called, jeans over his arm as he crossed the room to wrap one arm around Jack reassuringly. “And you are?”

“A friend of Lucifer’s from work,” the young woman said, holding a clear-topped cardboard box out like an offering. “Ella Lopez. Decker - Detective Decker, I guess you met her earlier? - said that you were new in town, so I thought it would be nice to bring over some homemade muffins to welcome you, but then I realized I had plenty of eggs and no milk and then it occurred to me that I had no idea if you even _liked_ blueberry muffins, so I stopped at the store on my way over and picked out an assortment. There’s blueberry,” she said, transferring the box to one hand and pointing with the other, “chocolate chip, cinnamon apple, banana nut, double chocolate, and a corn muffin in case you weren’t a sweets kind of person.”

Gabriel blinked. “That’s very generous and thoughtful of you,” he said, accepting the box she held out to him. “Please, come in while I get some plates.”

He passed the box to Jack with a soft kiss, smiling when his treasure stole a second one, and closed the door behind their visitor. Jack followed him into the kitchen and had three muffins peeled by the time Gabriel found plates that weren’t made of paper.

“I want to try these,” Jack murmured.

Gabriel kissed his temple and pulled out a butter knife. “Sounds good to me.”

It only took a minute to peel the wrappers off the muffins and cut them into quarters, and then with a blossom of muffin pieces on a larger plate and three smaller ones to eat off of, they went back to the living room where their guest was perched on the battered chair.

“So Lucifer actually saw your apartment?” she asked as she accepted a plate with a murmur of thanks. “Did he throw a fit?”

“A little,” Gabriel answered, grinning. “He did say he wanted to move us into someplace nicer.”

Jack selected his three flavors and began nibbling.

“This is my partner, by the way,” Gabriel said firmly. “He’s going by Jack right now. Please do your best to speak truthfully, because untruths cause him pain.”

“Got it,” promised the young woman. “Lying’s not my thing anyway.”

“I like her,” murmured Jack, and Gabriel relaxed slightly.

“Hey...did you know your brother’s got a whole ‘the actual devil’ persona going?” Ella asked curiously. “I mean, past just going by Lucifer Morningstar. It’s _really_ in depth. Like, he never talks about the Big Guy unless he’s saying ‘my father’. It’s subtle, but impressive. I’ve never seen him break character. And I guess his other brother is named Amenadiel? So now I’m wondering if your parents were just, like, _super_ into the whole naming convention and if Lucifer had another name but he was rebelling and changed it or...”

“Samael,” Jack said quietly.

Ella blinked.

“Our brother was named Samael,” Gabriel clarified. “He did, indeed, choose the name Lucifer for himself.”

“Wait...” Ella put down the blueberry muffin piece she’d been about to take a bite out of. “You said _our_ brother. You mean you and Amenadiel?”

Jack put his plate down and buried his face in Gabriel’s shoulder. “ _Tell her my name,_ ” he murmured in the language of the Mayans.

Gabriel kissed his head. “When he’s in a better place, mentally and emotionally, my partner isn’t bothered by his name and all the responsibility and history it carries. But aeons of being the hand of our Father’s wrath have carved pain into him, and he’s not always comfortable remembering that he is Michael.”

In his arms, Jack shuddered, and Gabriel crooned softly, wordlessly, an ancient melody that had once been sung by young men wooing their loves.

Ella’s plate fell to the floor.

“You’re serious,” she said numbly. “Lucifer isn’t putting on an act. Amenadiel is really an angel. You’re...”

“The voice of our Father, when He has a message that needs to be delivered,” Gabriel said in a gentle tone.

In a ritual motion, their guest brought one hand to her forehead and then drew an imaginary line down before almost touching one shoulder, then the other in an imaginary line perpendicular to the first. Then she went to touch something on her chest, only to apparently realize it wasn’t there.

“You’re angels,” she breathed. “You’re really angels?”

Jack snorted in amusement.

“Would you like to see my wings?” Gabriel asked, smiling as Ella’s face lit up.

Then Jack shook, shuddering like an earthquake, and all the humor died. Gabriel held his love tightly, riding out the restrained thrashing, concerned at the way the tiny freckles had become pinhole beacons on his pale skin. When the shaking stopped, he let go and leaned back, already knowing what he would see.

The sea-blue eyes he loved so much were glowing, pools of light that should have hurt to look on but somehow drew and held the gaze of all who saw them. When the words emerged from under those terrifying eyes, they were a plea and a warning all at once.

“ _He_ is angry.”

* * *

Chloe

* * *

“So you’re saying they trusted him, made their dark sides vulnerable, and then he just...stabbed them in the back.”

Chloe glanced at Lucifer, unhappy with how morosely he was staring out the car window as she drove and uneasy with how closely this case had paralleled the wedge Father Kinley had attempted to drive between them. “Pretty much,” she sighed. “What I don’t understand is _why_.”

Bitterly, Lucifer murmured, “That’s the million-dollar question.”

When they pulled up to the Church-owned safehouse Rivas was staying in, Lucifer was out of the car and stalking towards the house almost before she’d shut off the engine.

“Lucifer.”

He didn’t slow down.

“Lucifer, wait!”

He didn’t even hesitate as he got to the door, merely lifted one leg and kicked it effortlessly open. Suddenly afraid of what he would do, she ran for the door, but he closed it in her face and held it shut against her banging while he bent some decorative (or protective) metal railing away from the door’s window and used it to effectively bar the door after him. She pounded on the frosted window as his fuzzy silhouette vanished deeper into the house, but he ignored her.

Time to find another way in.

Trying not to think about what Lucifer could be doing inside, or the fact that she made him vulnerable and thus, what _someone else_ could be doing _to_ Lucifer, Chloe darted around the side of the house, looking for the back door. The sound of breaking wood greeted her as she found and opened it, and she drew her service weapon as she made her way towards the commotion. Oscar and Lucifer were talking, but too quietly for her to make out except for a few words - ‘the real me’. Instead of bursting into the room, Chloe rolled against the wall and waited, listening, just out of sight.

“I thought they could change,” Oscar said, panting, “but they couldn’t. Dave was stealing again. Susan was back on drugs. They were trash,” he said, almost laughing, “so I killed them.”

Chloe held her breath, waiting for Lucifer’s reaction.

“What are you going to do?” Oscar taunted, and then his laughter turned into pained gasps and then back to laughter, but...really unhinged laughter.

“I’ll show you,” rasped Lucifer, but the other man laughed again.

“Show me what you got!” he demanded. “Come on, _Lucifer_. Show us who you really are!”

Us?

That ‘us’ must have tipped Lucifer off that something was fishy about the situation, because after a brief silence and a sound like he’d dropped the other man, he asked, “Do you want me to punish you?” in the sort of tone that usually got followed by “Are you sure?”

When Oscar made no answer, Lucifer asked, “Why?” in a baffled voice, and Chloe rolled away from the wall and through the doorframe.

“Hands in the air,” she ordered, taking in the sight of the broken chair and the perplexed self-proclaimed murderer staring at Lucifer in confusion and growing horror.

Then Oscar turned to a large mirror hanging on the wall over a counter. “I failed,” he said almost absently, shifting on his knees. “May God forgive me.”

Then, before either of them realized his intent, he opened his mouth and dove towards the sharpened, broken chair leg pointing dangerously up. Chloe closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close out the wet sound of Oscar impaling himself.

* * *

Gabriel

* * *

Two men in nearly-identical clothing hurried out of a concealed panel and into the night, one bald with a beard and the other with close-cropped hair and skin the color of night.

“What in God’s name _was_ that,” the one with dark skin demanded.

“A setback,” the other answered in annoyance.

“That man killed two people, then himself, _and you knew?”_

Jack - _Michael,_ because when he was like this, there was no room for any other aspect of his identity - swooped down and snatched up the bald one with light skin. Gabriel, more for security than anything else, followed and snatched up the black man. They carried their burdens a good ways away, until Michael found a roof suitable for interrogation and punishment, and there they landed.

“Angels,” breathed the black man as Gabriel released him, staring in terror at Michael.

Storm-grey with hints of dark blue, Michael’s wings resembled a rock dove in daylight. At night, mantled above those glowing eyes, they were the embodiment of impending doom.

The light-skinned man looked ecstatic. “Angels! You see, your excellency, even if he did not expose himself for us tonight, God knows the truth! Lucifer Morningstar _is_ the Devil!”

“Us?” asked the other man in disgust. “You _were_ a part of this?”

“Detective Decker said he likes to make every case about himself,” the white one explained, bald head reflecting the Light that shone menacingly above him, words nearly tripping over themselves in his excitement. “I tailored this case _perfectly_ to him; you saw how enraged he was! He should have exposed himself to punish Oscar.”

“You killed two innocent people?” The apparently higher-ranking man backed away from his compatriot and into Gabriel’s wing, spread to keep him from accidentally falling off the roof. “You’re sick, Will.”

The light in Michael’s eyes brightened, and his hands tightened around ‘Will’.

“ **Tell us why you did it,** ” Gabriel commanded.

‘Will’ looked pleasantly surprised. “Of course. You see, there is always danger when the Devil walks the Earth. Death and destruction follow in his wake. But there is also a prophesy-”

“Not the prophesy again,” spat the other one.

“-that when the Devil walks the Earth and finds his first love, evil shall be released!”

In that instant, Gabriel heard a whisper. Not with his ears, not even in words, but a certainty that flowed down into his heart and left him with an understanding.

A message.

“ **Michael,** ” Gabriel said, voice resonating. “ **Let me.** ”

The light in his love’s eyes dimmed, and that golden head bowed in a nod. As ‘Will’ and his reluctant associate watched in uncertain fear, Gabriel approached and tenderly caressed the white man’s face. Leaning down, he put his lips almost on the man’s ear and with centuries of hard-won control, murmured, “ **Κύριε ἐλέησον.** ”

_Lord, have mercy._

The man shivered as the Voice of God swept through him, the blessing delivered by an angel cleansing him of sin, something in his brain breaking with the power of a sound man was never meant to hear. With a last sighed breath, his heart stopped and he went limp in Michael’s hands.

Before the surviving man - priest? - could ask what had happened, the soft thunder of more wings drew his attention and he gasped. Lucifer had landed softly on the roof behind him, white wings shining like the moon in the Light coming from Michael. Chloe looked dazed and ecstatic as he set her down, and then she saw the corpse.

“That’s Father Kinley,” she said, shaking off her emotional reaction. “What...?”

Michael tilted his head slightly. “You found us. How?”

“There was a trail of Light outside the safehouse,” Lucifer said with a nervous laugh. “The Detective called in the body and that we were in pursuit of a possible suspect, and I simply...followed it.”

The surviving priest tore his eyes away from Lucifer and looked at her. “Are you...detective Decker?”

She nodded. “And you? How are you involved with Father Kinley?”

“He brought me to that house claiming that he could prove to me that the Devil was walking the Earth.”

“And so he is,” Lucifer asserted. “Lucifer Morningstar, the one and only.”

“You’re not the Devil,” the priest said stoutly. “Not with wings like those. Detective, Father Kinley was working with Oscar Rivas. I’d be more than happy to testify to that.”

Decker ignored Lucifer’s protest of ‘I most certainly _am!’_ to look uncertainly at Gabriel. “What...happened to him?”

“He died,” Gabriel said simply. “And I bear a message from our Father.”

Lucifer gave him a sour look. “Oh, this ought to be good. What is it?”

“ **All is well,** ” Gabriel said, voice resonating enough that none could deny its truth. “ **The danger alluded to in the prophesy has been averted.** ”

The black man relaxed in visible relief. Decker frowned, but he smiled at her. “I will explain later, if you wish,” he said.

She nodded. “I appreciate that. We should get back to...at least _close_ to the crime scene, though. Lucifer? If...you wouldn’t mind,” she finished almost shyly.

The surprised, hopeful smile that elicited was one Gabriel had seen many times on Michael’s face over the centuries: the look of someone in love, faced with evidence that their love might be returned. Suddenly, the message made sense. By Voicing this Father Kinley to his death, cleansing his sin with a deadly blessing and sending him to Heaven instead of Hell, they had prevented whatever ill would have come from allowing his soul to fall into demonic hands.

Just then, the Light flickered out of Michael and he recoiled, dropping the body in his hands. Gabriel caught his love and pulled him close, singing softly while he clung and shuddered, pulling his wings in tight to help him hide from the world. Gabriel wrapped his own wings around him, covering storm grey with the warm red-brown of his own banded wings. Distantly, he could hear Decker explain to the priest that being the vessel of God’s wrath had left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I’ll carry the body,” Gabriel murmured. “You carry the priest.”

Jack nodded minutely.

“Did you see? Our brother is in love.”

Against his shoulder, Jack smiled. “Oh,” he said softly, “that’s _nice_.”

* * *

Chloe

* * *

As Lucifer flew them back to the house Oscar had been using, Chloe found herself contemplating the good and evil in him. It was reassuring beyond words that his wings were still there, were still _white_ and _feathered_ and not...black, or rotting, or demonic in some way. Even if he still had his ‘devil face’, the knowledge that it was a visual representation of his emotional trauma made it easier to process, and his wings-! She’d thought they were gorgeous when they were replicas up for auction, but the real ones, alive and attached to their owner...there was just no comparison.

There was good in Lucifer, that much was beyond question.

They landed in the side yard, near the door through which Father Kinley and the other priest had fled. Thankfully, no one had found it yet.

“Hey,” she said as he set her down. “Um. I have something I want to ask.”

Lucifer gave her a fragile, hopeful smile. “Of course, Detective. Ask, and I shall answer.”

“Why didn’t you punish Oscar?”

His expression darkened. “Because it was a set-up. He said Susan had gone back on drugs, but she hadn’t. That’s what Anders Brody told me in the station - that he’d betrayed her by taking her off the NASA project because he thought she was on drugs, but a drug test just last week came back clean.”

“Oh.” Chloe blinked; that wasn’t something she’d known. “So that tipped you off that something was going on, and that’s why...”

“That’s why I didn’t show him my devil face. _Them_ ,” he corrected himself, “since apparently Father Kinley had set the whole thing up to goad me into being _naughty_ in front of the Church.”

“Right.” Chloe cleared her throat and forced herself to take her hand off his shoulder. “We should, uh, probably make sure we’re clear on what happened.”

“No worries, Detective,” he said cheerfully. “We emerged from this clever door, I noticed a trail, we followed it, and Father Kinley was dead when we found him and his little friend.”

Chloe had to admit, it was all true - even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

The sound of approaching wings ended their conversation, and then Jack and Gabriel were beside them.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the priest, who seemed rather shaken by what he’d witnessed. “I don’t think I actually got your name.”

“Bishop Hoffman,” he said fervently. “Mr. Morningstar, I don’t know what you’ve suffered because of Father Kinley, but on behalf of His Holiness I am going to do everything in my power to see that his poisonous ‘prophesy’ is erased from all records. How...” He turned to Jack, shuddered, and turned to Gabriel instead. “How did - _why_ did you...”

“Our Father was angry,” Gabriel answered calmly. Absently, he handed the corpse in his arms to Lucifer and gathered Jack to his chest. “He does still care about you,” he told his brother, “and He is _quite_ aware of the negative impact His influence has had on some of His children, but brother - **you are on the right path.** ”

“Then why did dear old Dad interfere?” spat Lucifer.

“He wasn’t interfering with you.” Gabriel nodded at Father Kinley’s body. “He was _keeping_ interference _from_ you.”

Chloe almost laughed at the look on Lucifer’s face as he grappled with the suggestion that God had intervened on his behalf. “Come on,” she said, jostling his shoulder. “Put your wings away and let’s go let the team know we found the mysterious watchers.”

“Right. I _am_ holding a body, after all. After you, then, Detective.”

Smiling, Chloe led the way into the secret door and nearly ran face-first into Ella, who had been standing just out of sight.

“I’m so sorry!” she blurted. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop! I was just investigating this passageway when I heard you and Lucifer talking, and the stairs creak, so if I moved you’d know I was there and I didn’t want to make it awkward for you and...”

“Miss Lopez,” Lucifer said, a hint of impatience making the words sharp. “I am _holding_ a _dead body_ and I would very much like to relinquish it to your care. Can we _please_ do this _inside the house_.”

This time, Chloe _did_ laugh, but just a little bit, as Ella squeaked out one last ‘sorry!’ And retreated down the stairs. They followed her through the basement passage and up the other stairs to the hidden viewing room, and only then did Chloe realize they hadn’t thanked Gabriel or Jack or even said goodbye. But then again, considering how rough Jack looked, and how _terrifying_ he’d been with the glowing eyes, she decided they really needed to be alone for a while and made a mental note to drop by later with a gift.

They gave the body to the team, who rushed it off. They answered questions and handed Bishop Hoffman over for questions of his own. Then they were standing in a quiet corner with Ella.

“I’m sorry for laughing at you a couple days ago,” Ella told Lucifer quietly. “You were telling the truth, and I thought you were joking.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Apology accepted, of course, but what made you change your mind?”

“I visited your brothers. I was there when the Big Guy got...angry. It looked like Jack was having a seizure, and then his eyes were like... _whoom-_ ” she gestured, indicating light coming out of her eyes, “-and he said _He is angry_ and I knew, like I’ve _never_ known _anything_ before in my _life_ , that I was witnessing something actually divine. Then they both stood up and pulled out their wings and Gabriel said they had to go and they just...flew through the wall! Not like they left a hole in it or anything, they just went through like it wasn’t even there for them and left me sitting there, in their apartment - that’s a _really_ shitty apartment, by the way, I know you’re looking for a place for them but could you maybe look a little faster? When we’re not at a crime scene, I mean. Anyway, I was sitting in their apartment by myself, which was good because I _totally_ lost my mind freaking out for a good fifteen minutes, and then I came back and realized that everything I thought I knew, about the Big Guy and everything...it was right, but it was also wrong, because it is _so_ much more complex than I ever thought and I just...”

She paused, searching for words, and Chloe noticed that she was wearing her cross again.

“I’d been having doubts, you know?” Ella continued, fingering the chain around her neck. “And now...I don’t have doubts anymore, I _definitely_ have faith, but I also have a _huge_ pile of respect and also a little bit of fear because yeah, angels are real and they can be sweet and human as anyone but they can also be _terrifying_ and if you want someone to talk to, Decker, you can _totally_ talk to me.”

“Yeah,” Chloe agreed, nodding. “Let’s get together sometime and talk. It would be nice to have someone to talk to about...” she gestured vaguely. “...this sort of thing.”

Lucifer brightened. “Oh, you might want to invite the doctor to your little...chitchat party. She knows all about me, and Amenadiel, although I believe my other brothers are going to be a surprise to her.”

Chloe stared at him while Ella excused herself and scurried off. “She knows. About you.”

“Well, yes. I showed her my devil face ages ago. _And_ my wings. I daresay she took it better than you, although she _was_ shaken, and I imagine she could use someone to talk to about all of this as well.”

Of all the things she’d seen, heard, or learned that night, that was somehow the most and least surprising of them all and Chloe decided she would figure out an emotional reaction later.

* * *

Gabriel

* * *

On the other side of the world, in a cave that hadn’t seen the light of day since that rockslide three thousand years ago, Gabriel sat on a lush oriental rug with his arms and wings wrapped around the shuddering form of his love. An ornate brazier burned gently on the shore of the underground lake, tiny ripples casting reflections up to the ceiling, and the cones of incense smoldering among the flames filled the cave with soothing scent.

Gabriel was singing.

It was a song that had been popular in an empire long since turned to dust, one of Jack’s favorites. In its own time, it would have been accompanied by brass instruments, but with the proper application of Voice and the acoustics of the cave, Gabriel was able to recreate the harmonies on his own. This wasn’t the first time they’d come here when Jack was feeling fragile in the aftermath of Wrath; not by far. This was a tradition, angelic aftercare, shutting out the world and surrounding his treasure with soothing sensory input. In a few hours, or a few days, Jack would recover enough to face something outside the circle of his blossom’s arms and wings. They’d go back to the little apartment they were staying in, wait for their brother to tell them he’d found a better place, and begin piecing together a life as they’d done so many times in so many places.

But this time, they’d have friends.

That thought made Gabriel smile, and the song gained an extra note of joy. They would have friends, they would have a brother who didn’t look down on them for loving each other, and their brother was discovering love for himself. He had no doubt that Uriel had been the source of Father Kinley’s ‘prophesy’ and he almost wondered what Lucifer had done - or would do - for their sour-faced brother to retaliate in such a fashion. Considering how unsympathetic Uriel had been when Gabriel was learning how _not_ to kill with his Voice, he decided that Uriel no doubt deserved whatever Lucifer had done, and put it out of his mind. It wasn’t important. Only his trembling treasure was important, and the love that shored him up when he was weak, anchored him when he was lost, gave him strength when he was fragile. He would sing forever if he needed to in order to pull his love out of the dark places in his mind, to bring him back out and make him comfortable enough to laugh again and take joy in the world.

With the memory of Michael’s rare, bright smile lending richness to his voice, Gabriel sang.

**Author's Note:**

> The titles of this work and the series come from VNV Nation.
> 
> Check out tatch’s gorgeous art [here!](https://tatchloup.tumblr.com/)


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